According to the insurer of the vessel, a giant cargo ship that blocked the Suez Canal last month is being held in the waterway.
The UK Club, an insurer of Ever Given, said in a statement on Tuesday that the Japanese owners of the ship had received a claim on April 7 from the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), which manages the canal. The claim includes $ 300 million for loss of reputation. “
The company said a “generous offer” was made to the SCA to settle their claim Monday, without expanding on it.
“We are disappointed with the SCA’s subsequent decision to arrest the vessel today,” the company added in a statement.
The vessel ran aground on March 23 in the narrow, man-made canal that separates continental Africa from the Asian Sinai Peninsula, and rescue crews freed the ship nearly a week later, ending a crisis that paralyzed one of the world’s major waterways it and established. $ 9 billion worldwide trade per day.
The SCA declined to comment when NBC News approached Tuesday, saying it would make an official statement on Thursday.
SCA chairman Osama Rabie said on Egyptian TV last week that the Ever Given would not leave until the investigation was completed and compensation paid, Reuters reported. He said the channel had suffered ‘major moral damage’, as well as loss of shipping fees and storage costs, and added that he hoped to settle matters in a friendly manner.
A spokesman for the ship’s Japanese owner, Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., told NBC News by telephone on Wednesday that the company had been informed of the compensation money the SCA had requested and that they were currently negotiating the figure.
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, who manages the Ever Given, also said that the owner of the vessel informed them that the Suez Canal Authority had started the procedure against the ship, calling the decision ‘extremely disappointing’.
The company said the ship’s crew fully cooperated with the channel authority’s investigation into the grounding, which gave them access to the travel data recorder and other requested material.
Download the NBC News app for recent news and politics
The company added that the ship had been inspected and cleaned to sail to Port Said on the north side of the canal, where it would be re-evaluated before leaving for Rotterdam in the Netherlands, its original destination.
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement said the vessel remains anchored in Great Bitter Lake, a wide stretch of water halfway between the north and south ends of the canal.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed.